Prevalence of anemia and association with mortality in community-dwelling elderly in Thailand

Anemia is one of the most common health problems in the elderly in low and middle income countries. Evidence from studies in high income countries suggests that the presence of anemia may predict mortality. We aimed to estimate the prevalence of anemia and the determine the relationship of hemoglobin, mean corpuscular volume (MCV) and mortality in community dwelling Thai elderly. Data from subjects aged ≥ 60 years from the Fourth Thai National Health Examination Survey were analyzed. Comorbidity and hematologic indexes including MCV were obtained. The Cox proportional hazard model was applied to explore associations with mortality. Data from 8,935 subjects were obtained. The mean age of participants was 69.2 years (SD 6.8). 3446 (38.2%) of subjects had anemia; 1931(56%) of these were classified as mild and normocytic. With a total 51,268 person-year of follow up, 753 participants with anemia died, and the cumulative all-cause mortality was 38.5 per 1,000 person-years. The presence of anemia was associated with an increased risk of mortality with HR of 1.66 (95% CI = 1.50–1.84 , p < 0.001). Among subjects with low MCV, hemoglobin level < 10 g/dl in men and < 9 g/dl in women significantly increased the risk of mortality (HR of 2.71, 95% CI = 1.88–3.91 and HR of 3.14, 95%CI = 2.11–4.67, respectively) Persons with anemia and normal MCV, the association with mortality was evident at hemoglobin levels below 11 g/dl for both males and females. (HR of 1.98, 95% CI = 1.67–2.35). Anemia is a moderate to severe public health significant in the population for community dwelling elderly in Thailand. At the same level of Hemoglobin, low MCV population seem to have lower mortality rate than normal MCV. Systematic screening for anemia should be implemented to identify patients at increased risk of mortality. The future research should be focus on causes of anemia and factors contributing to increased mortality in normal to high MCV would be of interest. If this could lead to identifying modifiable causes, it would be beneficial for improving mortality risk among older people.